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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

>In the NFT community, we are witnessing the logical conclusion of a generation that is so alienated, so profoundly unfulfilled, that they are considering abandoning the physical world altogether.

the comparison to 1960s counterculture as a form of escapism for (presumably) Gen-Z is laughable. how is something counterculture when backed by the likes of billionaires, VC firms, and the gaggle of techno grifters that make up the space. any sense of "community" or "sticking it to the man" is to make money by getting others to buy your speculative assets for something that doesn't even exist yet

I love the writing of the piece, but found this idea not even believable for a second

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I don't think it's possible today for a subculture to exist without immediately becoming the target of marketing departments everywhere. If more than two people share a common interest, somebody will try to sell them stuff.

That's true, but in the case of NFTs, the whole concept is rooted in highly financialised digital capitalism. This isn't businesses jumping on the bandwagon, the business bandwagon is itself the trend.

> how is something counterculture when backed by the likes of billionaires, VC firms, and the gaggle of techno grifters

I think that’s part of the point - even the very idea of counterculture has been co-opted.

The icons of the 60s counter-culture were big music stars (backed by the record labels), "American dream" style cigarette and motorcycle advertising (backed by the respective industries) and a particular brand of Hollywood movie (backed by Hollywood). It was every bit as much co-opted by the establishment as the current countercultures are, these days the old boys record company execs have been replaced by venture capitalists but otherwise not much has changed.

Agreed, it’s some skilled and enjoyable writing here. But I think the author was suggesting that the NFT “movement” is actually different than the counterculture of the 1960s, in that it’s rooted in financial aspiration and capitalism, rather than rejecting it in favor of meaning.

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